First Time Homebuyer and TD Online Mortgage Process

Hi All,Just thought I would post about my experience applying for a mortgage through TD. I spent so much time here looking for info and found bits and pieces here and there, but I figured I would post my experience so far. This is a long post so please skip if you’re not interested.We applied for pre-approval online through TD before starting the house hunt and putting in an offer. We had $70k for the downpayment and were approved for a home purchase up to $600k at a rate of 1.95%. I make $77k and hubby makes 49k. We have an additional $250k in savings but wanted to keep that money invested in the stock market and stay diversified. I have a car lease with $340 in monthly payments and 2k on a line of credit, hubby has 6k on a line of credit. I was a bit worried about getting approved as hubby quit his higher paying job in early 2020 and was unemployed for most of the year until starting a new job in Sept 2020, but TD didn’t seem to have any issues with this as he was past his probation period and had been promoted twice in that time frame. (I also think it’s because we have banked with TD for over 10 years and they already have all our financial info).Once we got our pre-approval, we started house hunting. We put in the first three offers and were outbid (we live on Vancouver Island). We realized that we would be doing this for a long time if we didn’t play dirty like the other bidders. So next house we liked, we put in an offer with no conditions and quite a bit over asking price – risky business but the market is so hot right now and inventory is low, so people are doing anything to get a home. Offer was accepted – yay!The next day (Monday) I started the online mortgage application. TD’s HomeReady application/dashboard is really user-friendly and straight forward. I did have to call a rep a few times to clarify a few things, but that was mainly just me overthinking things. I had to wait until Tuesday to get our paystubs for that period before finally submitting the application.By that Friday our application was approved with some conditions. I spent the next several days trying to get in touch with our mortgage rep about the conditions and next steps. This was the frustrating part as he was hard to reach due to illness and being inundated with mortgage apps. I had previously asked him if it were possible to get a firm answer before the end of the month (Jan 29) so we could put notice in at our current place. That didn’t happen and the underwriters only fully approved the application the following Saturday (Jan 30) at midnight and only heard back from the rep on the following Monday. So I was only able to provide the letter of notice on Feb 1 with the expectation that we would have to pay March’s rent, but thankfully our building manager is an amazing human and said not to worry about it at all!Our final mortgage rate was 1.69% (super awesome), but we do have to pay for CMHC insurance as our dowpayment is under 20%. We set it up for biweekly payments to go with our pay schedule.With the mortgage approved, we had to go into the bank to sign the papers. This was hard to set up because it seems like everyone on the Island is in a buying frenzy and the bank was completely booked up for the whole week. We were only able to get in at a branch far away from our usual one at the end of day on Friday.In between the mortgage application, my realtor linked us up with a lawyer and insurance broker. That process has been super smooth and everyone is so responsive and professional.After signing the mortgage documents, we started getting our downpayment and closing costs money ready. We had the money saved in various non-registered, RRSP and TFSA accounts and needed to sell the investments before transferring the cash. I also had to set up a separate appointment at the bank to have some money withdrawn from my RRSP through the First Time Homebuyer Plan (this was also hard to get as TD seems to be generally very busy, plus Covid impacts, and our mortgage rep had to personally call the branch to squeeze me in to get that done). Despite the difficulty getting an appointment, the process went very smoothly. The bank advisor just walked me through the T1036 form then had me sign it, then she faxed it off to TD Waterhouse where my RRSP is held to get the process initiated. It only took a day for the money to be transferred.Now with the cash sitting in our chequing account, we are just waiting to hear from the lawyer about when we’ll meet to go over documents and give him the downpayment and closing costs, and we’re set to close in just under two weeks.So all in all, the time from having our offer accepted to completing the deal will be exactly 5 weeks. I’ve been really impressed with TD’s online mortgage application, as well as my realtor who is so organized and professional (her company is lending us a moving truck and boxes for free too).I hope this is helpful for other first time buyers! via /r/PersonalFinanceCanada https://ift.tt/3tMk3VJ